The ambitious new Orient Star Skeleton 75th Anniversary Flagship Model RE-BR0001N represents two major milestones for the brand — 75 years as a manufacture and 35 years of making skeletonised watches.
A limited edition of 130 pieces, the Orient Star Skeleton introduces the new F9 movement family, which combines the best of the brand’s finishing and technology, including a prominent blue silicon escape wheel and gleaming diamond-milled chamfers, in a zaratsu-polished stainless steel case.
Initial thoughts
Orient Star cites no fewer than three inspirations for the design of the open-worked dial plate: Zen garden ripples, the use of negative space (“ma”/間 in Japanese) and the orbits of planets — the latter fitting into Orient Star’s overall astral theme. Regardless, the overlapping circular design is appealing and creates ample surface area for decoration.
The Orient Star Skeleton is an inherently movement-forward watch, with its cal. F9B82 displayed proudly beneath its chamfered dial plate. But there’s more to the Skeleton than its open-worked dial. In particular, the gleaming case is as sharp and shiny as you’d expect of a Japanese luxury watch, addressing a relative weakness of past models and helping justify entry into a new price segment.
While the interlocking ring motif brings order to the dial, the balance wheel is arguably overemphasised, breaking the symmetry. This pattern interruption feels abrupt in part because it reveals the less attractive underside of the balance wheel.
That said, it is without question the most luxe Orient Star Skeleton to date and its most expensive contemporary offering, with a price tag of US$8,000. Orient Star plans to build 130 of these watches, showing confidence in the new product despite its upmarket positioning.
Of course, it is only expensive compared to Orient Star’s usual fare — the pricing makes more sense compared to Swiss skeleton watches of similar quality. To sweeten the deal, the watch comes with a 10-year warranty, and up to three complimentary full services during this period, should you choose to follow Orient Star’s recommended 3-5 year service interval.
The star of the show
While the open-worked dial plate gleams brightly at arm’s length, a closer look reveals a degree of hand craftsmanship that is uncommon in this segment.
The black accent lines, for example, are not printed. In fact, the grooves are flooded with black ink using a handheld syringe, adding depth to both the colour and geometry. The vertically brushed texture is applied freehand as well, by dragging the dial plate across an abrasive surface.
The polished chamfers are diamond-cut, a process that, if well executed, results in an extremely smooth, mirror-like surface. Single-point diamond turning (SPDT), with a stationary diamond cutter and spinning workpiece, is used everywhere from Grand Seiko dial furniture to Patek Philippe movement parts.
The inverse, with a spinning cutter and a stationary workpiece, is often used to machine bevels on bridges and plates. This approach is particularly vulnerable to chatter during cutting, which can be seen here, but the smoothness of these bevels is above average.
Inking and graining the dial plate by hand. Image — Orient Star
The dial plate frames Orient Star’s Milky Way-styled silicon escape wheel. While silicon components took the Swiss watch industry by storm years ago, Orient Star was the first, and remains the only, Japanese brand to adopt the material.
While metal escape wheels can be press-fit or riveted into place without issue, silicon parts require a lighter touch. Rather than gluing the escape wheel into place, as is the norm, Seiko Epson engineers designed a series of flexible arms into the escape wheel that tightly hug the escape pinion.
A hard oxide surface treatment protects the escape wheel, so the colour won’t wear away, and it’s unaffected by UV light.
The escape wheel’s vivid blue colour comes from a layer of poly-crystalline silicon. The thickness of this layer determines the wavelength of light it reflects, which can range from blue-green to purple. The same phenomenon colours the heat-blued steel hands; heating the steel causes it to react with atmospheric oxygen, forming an oxide layer.
This is complicated somewhat by the open-worked design of the dauphine-style hands, which can result in uneven heating and inconsistent oxide-layer thickness, and thus blotchy colour. Due to this design, the failure rate is around 50%, meaning that only half the hands produced are deemed suitable for use.
The open-worked dial plate exposes some of the differential for the power reserve display.
As a final flourish unique to this model, the heads of the screws affixing the dial plate to the movement are lapped. This imparts a very flat, mirror-finished surface to the dial-side screw heads, causing them to turn black when viewed from certain angles.
An elevated case
While some previous Orient Star models featured dials made by Seiko Epson’s Shinshu Watch Studio, a centre of high-end Japanese watchmaking, this is the brand’s first model with a case made there as well. The difference in quality between this case and those of other Orient Star references is revealing.
Not only is the case construction more complex, especially the lugs, it is also zaratsu polished. This polishing technique, akin to lapping, is most associated with Grand Seiko products, and uses the side of a spinning tin plate to create a mirror-like finish not possible with normal soft polishing wheels.
The case back is fixed with four screws behind the lugs, an approach also used on early Spring Drive watches that allows for thinner-walled cases — ideal for a skeletonised watch. This gave Orient Star room to expand the movement from 27.6 mm to a pocket watch-sized 36 mm in diameter to fill the 40 mm case without a spacer. Moreover, the case is well proportioned at just 9.5 mm tall.
But Orient Star did more than just enlarge the dial plate. The brand made good use of the extra space by rearranging the train, putting the balance, escapement and fourth wheel in a straight line.
The open-worked dial plate appears especially vivid thanks to the anti-reflective coating on the sapphire crystal, which causes the crystal to almost disappear without the typical blue hue, though the case back crystal seems to be uncoated.
Made of hand-massaged, vegetable-tanned goat leather, the strap is claimed to be durable enough for long-term wear despite its smooth, supple feel. This is the second watch we’ve reviewed recently with a goat leather strap, and in both cases we came away impressed with the on-wrist experience.
A next-generation calibre
While the first member of the F9 calibre family focuses on aesthetics, it comes with a few technical improvements compared to Orient Star’s F8 platform. Most obvious is the addition of an eccentric screw to the regulator for more precise adjustment.
The difference is quantifiable — moving the regulator pin directly by 1° changes the rate by ~15 seconds/day, while turning the eccentric screw by 1° only changes the rate by ~1 second/day. Orient Star has tightened the timekeeping tolerance as well, now +10 to -4 seconds per day.
Finally, to improve power transmission, the leaves of the second, third, and fourth wheel pinions are buffed individually using abrasive powder and a boxwood polishing wheel — a labour-intensive but effective trick also used to squeeze longer power reserves out of Spring Drive models.
This is an example of functional finishing, which is often overshadowed by purely decorative embellishments like bevelling. The result is at least two more hours of going, bringing the power reserve up to three full days.
Key facts and price
Orient Star Skeleton
Ref. RE-BR0001N
Diameter: 40 mm
Height: 9.5 mm
Material: Stainless steel
Crystal: Sapphire
Water resistance: 30 m
Movement: F9B82
Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, and power reserve
Frequency: 21,600 beats per hour (3 Hz)
Winding: Hand winding
Power reserve: 72 hours
Strap: Black goat leather with stainless steel folding clasp
Limited edition: Yes, 130 pieces
Availability: From December 2026 at retailers and the Orient Star online store
Price: US$8,000 excluding taxes (JPY1,100,000)
For more, visit orient-watch.com.
This was brought to you in partnership with Orient Star.
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